Chapter 209: The sea embraces all rivers
Although Cao Cao’s rule, he overturned countless times.
But one thing is exactly what Cao Cao thought, that is, he won a lot of territory without fighting.
Now that Cao Cao is about to encircle Yongqiu County, it is no wonder that Zhang Miao and Gao Shun are so nervous and anxious.
Gao Shun and Liu Feng came to the inner palace together, and saw Liu Bei already standing at the door of the courtyard waiting with a smile.
After seeing Gao Shun, he actually walked down the steps and gave Gao Shun a veritable courtesy of demotion.
Gao Shun's expression remained unchanged, but he was still very moved in his heart.
Liu Bei personally led Gao Shun into the living room, where the guests of honor were seated.
As soon as the two parties sat down, they saw Gao Shun suddenly stand up, walk to the hall, and bow to Liu Bei who was sitting on the throne: "Liu Shijun's reputation for benevolence and righteousness has spread throughout the Central Plains. Today, Shun is overestimating his own capabilities. , I beg Liu Shijun to save my lord. I am willing to go through fire and water for Liu Shijun. "
"Why do you say this to a filial father?"
Liu Bei was shocked, but he was a little happy in his heart.
Although Liu Feng did not tell Liu Bei what kind of person Gao Shun was, Liu Bei's eyes were so vicious that he had long seen through that Gao Shun was a loyal man. Even if he did not expect that Gao Shun could be foolishly loyal to death, But I also admire him very much.
After all, loyal people are still worth cherishing in this era.
What Gao Shun said right now properly expressed his attitude of surrender and the conditions for his loyalty.
But this condition was completely based on consideration for his old master and not for himself at all. This really made Liu Bei appreciate Gao Shun even more.
Gao Shun replied: "Ming Gong, Zhang Shijun's brother and clan have been trapped in Yongqiu. If no one rescues them, they are destined to perish together. For now, only Ming Gong can save them from Cao Yanzhou's soldiers. . I beg you to show your kindness, and Zhang Shijun is willing to surrender his seven hundred men to the camp. "
"Father, please get up and speak first."
Liu Beili. Xi helped Gao Shun up and said comfortingly: "I will not hide my filial piety from my father. I am fully aware of Zhang's intentions. Now, Bei is also trying to find ways to rescue Zhang's brother and clan. Just now, he was sent to Yanzhou as an envoy. , the envoy to resolve the matter has already set off, heading straight for Dingtao."
After Cao Cao defeated Lu Bu in Dingtao and drove him out of Yanzhou, he temporarily suspended his troops in Dingtao to observe the future situation.
Gao Shun was immediately overjoyed and kowtowed: "Shundu has fallen into the camp, and I will serve Ming Gong and his son to death!"
Liu Bei hurriedly picked up Gao Shun, comforted him again, and then sent him away personally.
After Gao Shun left, Liu Bei sat in the main seat thoughtfully.
Liu Feng was a little surprised, not knowing what his father was thinking.
After a while, Liu Bei slowly spoke: "Feng'er, you once told your father about the internal fighting in Hebei and the internal fighting in Jingzhou. Now that Xuzhou is recruiting heroes from the Central Plains, will there also be internal fighting? Possibly?"
Liu Feng comforted him: "Although we are recruiting talented people now, our losses in Xuzhou have been too great. A large number of cities and soldiers in the three counties of Donghai, Langya and Xiapi were massacred. The losses have been great, and now there are many people but few, and we are trying to attract heroes from all walks of life to join us.”
In addition, Liu Feng did not tell Liu Bei.
The so-called party struggle is the most feared struggle between two parties, such as the Niu-Li party struggle in the Tang Dynasty, the old and new party struggle in the Song Dynasty, and the eunuch party and Donglin party struggle in the late Ming Dynasty.
When two parties are fighting, it is easy to fall into a life-or-death situation, especially if they lose the mediator.
Once you fall into a life-and-death situation, then you will treat people wrongly, speak purely in terms of party, talk about justice, and have interests in your hands.
The most fearful thing in everything is to treat people wrongly. Once this step is reached, the people doing the work will easily be surrounded by groups and will be at an inherent disadvantage.
If things go on like this, there will be no one to do anything, and the empire will have only one path to destruction.
The imbalance in the late Eastern Han Dynasty was actually a struggle between two parties, with the eunuch party at its peak facing off against the gentry alliance.
In the end, the gentry alliance won miserably, but was immediately picked off by the warrior Dong Zhuo.
Therefore, a court where a hundred flowers bloom and a variety of factions flourish is a healthy court.
Because a hundred flowers bloom and the factions are diverse, it means that the power of each faction will not be too strong, so that the royalist party has an overwhelming advantage over any faction, thus becoming the pinnacle of the sea.
During the founding periods of the past dynasties, talented people emerged in large numbers, and the government was not necessarily in chaos because of the number of factions.
The most important thing naturally depends on the master's coordination and governance skills. Secondly, the dividends brought by the entire faction's rising period can also greatly reduce internal strife.
Take Yuan Shao as an example. The Hebei faction and the Henan faction under his command did not fight to the death from the beginning.
Even in the process of fighting Gongsun Zan, the two sides had a lot of cooperation. For example, Zhang He, who was tricked by Guo Tu and had to surrender to Cao Cao before the battle, cooperated with Guo Tu during the Hebei War. .
This is because at this time, both the Hebei and Henan factions can cut flesh from Gongsun Zan to share the fat.
But when Gongsun Zan came to an end and the flesh on his body became less and less, the increase turned into a stock.
The climax of the struggle was during the Guandu period.
Why?
Isn’t it because everyone thinks Guandu is the last battle?
Once Guandu wins, who else in the world will be Yuan Shao’s opponent?
From the perspective of Yuan Shao and his ministers, local princes such as Liu Bei and Liu Biao would surrender without a fight.
In fact, this is also the case. Under the background of Yuan Shao being strong and Cao Cao weak, who can still stand on Yuan Shao's side and make great efforts. Can he be mentally prepared to be the master of Yuan Shao's North Road?
Besides, the Eastern Han Dynasty was different from later generations. The emperor was often quite tolerant of princes bringing capital into the organization, as long as you didn't go too far.
Even for Han Xin, Liu Bang only demoted him to the Marquis of Huaiyin instead of actually killing him.
The time when Han Xin died, Liu Bang was on an expedition. Historical records record that before Liu Bang went on an expedition, he specifically asked Han Xin if he wanted to go with him, but Han Xin refused.
Yingbu rebelled on his own and deserved his death.
Only Peng Yue is truly unjust.
When the Eastern Han Dynasty was founded, countless big landowners brought capital to join the organization, ranging from the governors of Youzhou and Bingzhou to the county magistrate of a city. This is why Guangwu was able to grow so quickly. One of the main reasons for unifying Hebei and defeating hundreds of thousands of bronze horse thieves.
The troops under Liu Xiu's command were all field troops from the frontier fortresses, and at last they were regular troops from the county and state. Like the princes of the Eastern Han Dynasty, they had to start from scratch and relied on the army of the county and state that had been weakened to the extreme. Slowly develop military power.
Once you lose the battle, you will immediately be injured and have to restructure your army.
Even Cao Cao is no exception.
So, Liu Feng only hated that he did not recruit enough talents and the speed was not fast enough, and he never worried about the problem of internal fighting.
Moreover, most of the talents Liu Feng searched for were top talents, or people with honest personalities, such as Zhuge Jin, Bu Zhi, Lu Su, Chen Deng, Chen Qun, Zhang Zhao, Zhang Hong, Chen Gui, Chen Jiao, Xu Xuan, Qin Song, Chen Duan, these people are not said to be selfless in history, but at least they are more public than private, and none of them indulges in internal fighting and ignores the overall situation.
If you have to find someone who has strong internal fighting attributes and is more private than public, then the only one is Wei Jing, and Liu Ye may be considered half.
During the period when Zhuge Liang was in power, the Shu Han Dynasty had complex factions, including the Yuancong faction, the Jingzhou faction, the Dongzhou faction, the Yizhou local faction, and even the eunuch faction. Was the struggle fierce?
No, because Zhuge Liang reconciled well, this period was the smoothest and most stable period for the Shu Han regime.
On the contrary, after the death of Zhuge Liang, who had monopolized power, the Yizhou local faction was completely desperate, and the surrender forces began to rise.
The ideas of the Yizhou locals couldn’t be more simple. Since you have been suppressing us Yizhou people and don’t treat us Yizhou people as human beings, then it would be no worse for us Yizhou people to surrender to Cao Wei than now. political treatment.
Then why don’t I vote?
Besides, the development momentum of Xuzhou is quite good now. Not only is it on the rise, but there are also a large number of job vacancies in the prefecture and county.
Pengcheng alone had five county magistrates, five county magistrates, five meritorious officials, and five chief administrators. Not to mention that except for Guangling, one-third to half of the counties in the other three counties were affected by the disaster. When these counties suffered military disasters caused by Cao Cao, they would not care whether you were a scholar, a powerful person, or a commoner.
Even scholars and powerful people will receive special care because of their large wealth.
Cao Cao’s army is here to rob money. They can’t rob civilians as much as they can rob scholars.
So the local gentry in Xuzhou also suffered a heavy blow, otherwise it would not be so easy for Liu Feng to deal with the salt tycoons.
Even if Liu Feng failed, the current talent reserve is not too high, but too small. Even the county magistrates within Xuzhou are not satisfied. Not to mention that Peiguo still has six county magistrates and county heads who can be replaced at any time.
These people can be said to have no resistance to Liu Bei's replacement. Even the local nobles of Pei State did not dare to resist too much at this time.
There are two reasons. One is because Liu Bei’s base is not your Yuzhou scholars.
Secondly, Caozhou Mu from Yanzhou next door has already demonstrated it perfectly.
In addition, the Xuzhou Army will most likely go south to Yangzhou next year, which is another large state with six counties and ninety-two counties. There are not enough talents to fill these key positions. Are they all left to the powerful Yangzhou gentry?
From now on, will Yangzhou be Liu Bei's Yangzhou, or will it be Yangzhou where the local gentry in Yangzhou are powerful?
Even if Xuzhou only occupies one-third of Yangzhou in the end, it is still a very big piece of cake for Xuzhou. Its volume is almost equal to two-fifths of Xuzhou. Even if a small number of scholars from Yuzhou and Qingzhou are included, Even if you eat too much, you may not be able to digest it completely.
Will there be internal strife and factional fighting at this time?
These are people, not crickets. They are not fighting for factions. The essence is to fight for interests and engage in factions.
Starting from the middle of next year, Liu Feng plans to transfer manpower from Liu Erying, at least 60 people, and place them in various places to serve as chief bookkeepers, merit officers and other positions.
If it was before the Shi Changshi Rebellion, these positions should have been selected from the powerful local nobles. It would be very difficult to land them by air.
But who knows that the world is now in chaos, and because of Cao Yanzhou, there are still a large number of newly built counties in Xuzhou. These counties that have just been completely destroyed do not have the powerful local nobles.
After these officials from Liuerying have worked for one or two years, they have practical work experience, paid money, and have qualifications, they can select the outstanding ones and promote them to county magistrates, county magistrates, and county magistrates. The county magistrate, the next best, can also be promoted to chief secretary, meritorious officer, or to a county.
Then using these counties as the basic base, a steady stream of newcomers from Liu Erying were assigned to take over the original positions, eventually forming an official group that was attached to Liu Bei and his sons, especially Liu Feng.
In this way, although fighting between factions still cannot be eliminated, the Lord has the power to make the final decision and can effectively suppress the scale and intensity of internal fighting.
With Liu Bei's benevolent temperament and good political ability, as long as he has a few years of study and Liu Feng patching things up beside him, I believe he will be at least no worse than Cao Cao. Even surpassing Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, Liu Biao and others, and standing out from the crowd is a great thing.
After all, the princes these days are very novices. Not only do they not know how to fight, they don't know how to farm.
Liu Feng didn't look down on Cao Cao alone, but looked down on them all.
This is not because Liu Feng is inflated, but that Cao Cao's farmland is really dry, and he is completely depleting the lake in a sustainable way. As a result, the people in the farming villages fled one after another, preferring to work as servants for the nobles rather than working as civilian villages for Cao Cao's regime.
Did Cao Cao reflect on such an exaggerated situation?
Cao Cao's reflection was, since you don't want to build civilian villages, then I'll build military villages.
The households were directly tied up and organized into military camps. Not only did the proportion of food turned over be even more exaggerated, but they also had to be drawn from each household every time they fought. What was even more frightening was that the whole family would never be the same again. Instead of being a civilian household, it was transformed into a military household and was passed down from generation to generation. It was almost the same as a humble household.
The bloody bravery of the two Han Dynasties completely collapsed, and the fierceness of the Han family also disappeared.
After the crazy pursuit of death in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, they conquered the vast territory of Nuo, dominated the Central Plains, and defeated foreigners who could only live in the mountains and bitter cold land. The Han people were labeled as not knowing how to fight and not good at fighting. , how sad and deplorable is this?
The person who created the figurines was Cao Cao.
Those who have become more serious are the nobles of the Wei and Jin Dynasties.
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In early December, Yuzhou Governor Guo Gong reported that Yuan Tan was the most talented person in Yuzhou. Three days later, Xuzhou Liu Bei, the pastor, recommended Yuan Tan as the governor of Qingzhou.
Yuan Shao, Yuan Tan and his son were immediately overjoyed, and then sent someone to send Liu Bei a heavy thank you gift, which included three thousand stones of grain alone, as well as various northern furs, Youzhou mountain ginseng, etc. Many rare gifts.
This is also a deliberate show of goodwill by the Yuan family, knowing that Xuzhou has been short of food.
Liu Bei was also very grateful for this and entertained the gift giver grandly.
As for Guo Gong, who really stepped forward to support Yuan Tan, he also received courtesy thanks from the Yuan family. After all, he was nominally Yuan Tan's sponsor.
Everyone with a discerning eye knows that Guo Gong has already vassalized Liu Bei, and this talent spot was originally intended for Liu Feng. Liu Feng only needed to go to Yuzhou for a formality. However, Liu Feng felt that such an operation would not only be of no benefit, but would also offend the scholars in Yuzhou and ruin his reputation, so he politely declined.
In addition, Liu Bei, as the shepherd of Xuzhou, actually wanted to recommend Zhuge Jin as a talented person.
When the news reached Zhuge's home, it immediately caused an uproar among Zhuge Xuan and his brothers.
After receiving Liu Biao's personal letter, Zhuge Xuan stayed in Xuzhou with peace of mind.
Liu Biao asked him to find opportunities to bring together the relationship between Xuzhou and Jingzhou, hoping to achieve a deeper alliance.
For Liu Biao, he was actually surrounded by enemies.
Liu Zhang is in the west, Liangzhou Army is in the north, Jiaozhi is in the south, and Yuan Shu is in the east.
When it comes to strategic dilemmas, Liu Biao is actually no better off than Yuan Shu. At best, his enemies are not as "aggressive" as Yuan Shu's enemies.
The covenant between Liu Biao and Yuan Shao is actually very similar to Liu Bei.
They were all forced to form alliances because they wanted to secure their positions.
Liu Biao had to form an alliance with Yuan Shao to relieve Yuan Shu's pressure because Yuan Shu occupied the two counties of Nanyang and Zhangling, and then expanded southward in an attempt to occupy Jingzhou.
Liu Bei wanted to sit on the throne of Xuzhou Mu because his reputation and strength were not enough, so he had to turn around and defect to Yuan Shao's camp in exchange for Yuan Shao's endorsement of him with his reputation.
Of course, now neither Liu Biao nor Liu Bei need Yuan Shao's original support, but the covenant is still maintained.
But Cao Cao, his ally in the northeast, made Liu Biao very afraid. He felt isolated and helpless, and he had the idea of befriending Xuzhou.
From this point of view, Liu Biao's intention to form a deep alliance with Liu Bei is very sincere, but the premise is that Yangzhou must let him have a share of the pie, or even let him eat the meat and Xuzhou drink the soup.
Therefore, Zhuge Xuan, his confidant and close friend, who was born in Xuzhou and was admired by Liu Bei, has become a hot favorite?
“Uncle, I am ashamed to be worthy of such a talented person.”
Zhuge Jin’s first reaction when he heard that Liu Bei wanted to recommend him as a talented person was to refuse.
How could he be worthy? Chen Deng, the number one celebrity around Liu Bei, did not have the reputation of being a talented person. How could he, Zhuge Jin, deserve it?
Although Chen Deng does not need to be promoted because he has already become an official, there are also many children of the Chen family who have not yet become an official.
Nowadays, who among the number one scholar family in Xuzhou, other than the Chen family, dares to claim this title?
Zhuge Jin is cautious and steady by nature, humble and virtuous. How could he put his family in a conflict with the leader of Xuzhou just for the sake of temporary fame?
Zhuge Xuan smiled, he couldn't be more satisfied with his nephews.
The eldest child is loyal, diligent and cautious, the second child is witty and resourceful, and the third child, although still young, has good character and a promising future.
Zhuge Xuan himself had no heirs, so he loved the Zhuge brothers and sisters as if they were his own flesh and blood.
The legacy left by Zhuge Xuan's life in history also made Liu Biao very kind to the Zhuge brothers. Otherwise, just by virtue of his intelligence, a northern exiled second-rate scholar family living in Jingzhou would really not be able to marry in Jingzhou. The daughter-in-law of the Huang family, a top noble family.
Cai Kuai, Pang Huang, and Zhuge Liang's family were able to marry into these four families. Liu Biao really contributed a lot.
“A Liang, what do you think?”
Zhuge Xuan did not directly respond to Zhuge Jin's request, but asked Zhuge Liang.
In Zhuge Xuan's eyes, although Zhuge Liang is the second son, his vision, structure, and abilities are far superior to those of his eldest son Zhuge Jin. Even his uncle feels a little ashamed of himself.
(End of this chapter)